Page 91 of Hidden Sacrifice
I blinked several times before shaking my head no. “Going up in the throne room without power is suicide. More demons than just Lucifer have the power to remove a celestial soul from the body. We need to take the time to power up before we go in there.”
“But what if that gives Fachnan enough time to heal too?” Mor was antsy, not wanting to risk Fachnan getting away again.
“If Fachnan could reattach most of its limbs once it got to Hell, it would still need to heal from your burns,” Justice said, looking at Mor. “Potions can only give you a slight bump in power, and they taste horrible as fuck. As a rough timeline, Jax and Fachnan will need at least two more days before completely healing and regenerating their power. With potions and sex,” Justice said, mentally running through the calculations. Centuries of experience had proven Justice spot on, most of the time.
“Then Jax needs to stay at the hunting cabin. I can boost my power on blood and go to the palace with Cole. I want to note who is missing,” Mor suggested as she started back on foot towards the hunting cabin. We followed beside her, no one attempting to use any speed to hurry the journey. It would leave me in the dust behind them.
“I imagine Lucifer will call us to Hell before I am fully healed. We will have to give Aggie a call and see if she can at least get together a few more protection runes since my shields will be so low. She might even have extra demon blood she is willing to part with for Mor and Jace to drink.”
Mor wrinkled her nose at the thought of drinking stored blood. But demon blood, even from a jar, would power her up quicker than drinking from any mortal soul. I would have to wait until I got back to the hunting cabin to message Aggie since my phone wasn’t on me.
“Too late,” Jasper announced, pulling his phone from his pocket before looking at the screen. “Lucifer requests our immediate presence in the throne room.”
My eyes rolled; he really couldn’t have given us enough time to at least make it back towards the portals before summoning us? “Call Aggie, see if she can meet us at the hunting cabin with everything she has. We’ll have to drink down what we can on the way to the palace and hope we don’t die.”
* * *
“Treasure,” Lucifer said overdramatically as we walked into the throne room. My one good eye scanned the room seeking out familiar faces and checking them off my mental list. I still didn’t have any vision back in the eye that had exploded under the heat of Jasper’s fire.
Mor’s skin had taken on a slightly olive hue after forcing down as many cups of blood as she could manage on her way here. Jace had similar coloring to him, but at least I knew they were both powered up as much as we could manage. Jace held the necklace in his pocket. Justice hadn’t had enough time to finalize it now that the pack bond was added in, but at least it would spare us from taking each other out should things go badly.
“My favorite pack is finally complete,” Lucifer shouted out to the room, holding his arms out wide.
I hoped he would get on with this circus show and release us quickly. We took our seats at the base of the steps to the throne, bearing our respects. Lucifer started in on another long-winded speech. I promptly tuned out in favor of something else that caught my attention.
Lilith stood in a dark corner behind the throne, her eyes focused entirely on Mor. Nothing short of hate shined in Lilith’s eyes as Lucifer continued to shovel out praises. Her eyes slid to mine as she caught me staring. I was trying to determine if she was hiding the kind of injury I was. She looked entirely normal. Her flirtatious wink was also wholly usual.
My attention changed again as Lucifer started to head down the steps of his throne while Jace stood.
“Take your shirt off for me, Jace. Let all these demons get a good look at all that delicious vampire flesh that will slowly turn into solid demon muscle.” Lucifer smiled wide, while internally, I groaned.
I was hoping enough that demons were not current on vybred conversion timelines. Never mind that dream, since Lucifer just announced Jace would still be weak for a short period. He might as well have screamed for Fachnan and whatever demon that was helping; the time to attack was now.
Lucifer approached Jace, a thin whisp of gold clutched between two fingers before he marked Jace as his favorite. I waited, wondering if I would feel anything when the mark was added to him, but nothing happened. There was a faint golden swirl on his chest, the same as the rest of the pack.
“Your wedding will be tomorrow. I, of course, will officiate, and an elaborate feast will follow. I think we should invite all of Hell. Put on a good show for the common demons.” Lucifer smiled, stepping in front of Mor.
I knew she was talking with him inside her head, but I wouldn’t get to figure out what was said until later. I wasn’t so sure that Lucifer was on our side.
I waited to hear an objection from Mor, asking for some more time to prepare for the wedding, but silence filled the hall before Lucifer dismissed us with a wave. Leaving the throne room, my eyes scanned through the sins and their lovers. My mother wasn’t in attendance.
Instead of heading back to the hunting cabin, we approached our wing of the palace. Filing into the war room and taking our seats, we waited for Mor to give us her report. Cole bound over to her, taking a seat next to her before lying down. He was getting better at tucking his wings against his body rather than letting them flop around.
“We are getting married tomorrow,” she said with a nervous smile as she looked around the table at us.
“How do you feel about that, Fox?” Justice asked.
“Getting married or getting married tomorrow,” she laughed out before shaking her head. “I don’t know. On the one hand, I know that I love you all, and I want nothing more than to spend the rest of eternity with all of you. That is what the mate bond is anyways, and we already have that. So maybe a wedding is a little redundant and ill-timed considering no matter how many times I fuck Jax’s brains out, he still won’t be fully powered up by tomorrow.”
“This feels more like a trap than anything else. Are we sure that Fachnan isn’t Lucifer?” I said out loud before the skin-crawling sensation washed over me. It always happened when you talked about Lucifer as if the very walls of the palace were always listening in for him.
“It was a demon. No angel blood,” Justice reported.
“Then let’s go in there knowing it’s a trap. We are the predators of the evening. Let’s be the wolves and set a trap right back at them. Then we are going on a fucking honeymoon until everyone is a full demon and entirely healed,” Mor said passionately. She was turning out to be quite the demon.
CHAPTER31
MORRIGAN
